Vent, pluie, neige et grele

Initially living in France, you have 3 key tools that help you to get by. Copy, paste and Google translate. All of which help you to communicate while you get up to scratch with the language. Now, just over a month in, my French is definitely getting better. Though speaking is not my strong point at the moment, I’m a lot better at reading and writing messages, with less and less use of Google translate. In the last few weeks, Francis found me a new store, just the other side of Pont de Chery, which had many of the things I was looking for. You wouldn’t think things, such simple things, could be so hard to find. I’m still not the world’s best chef (any recipes please send my way) and seeing photos from the other team riders meals makes feel not only hungry, but it really emphasises how simple my meals are currently.

In terms of racing, I first did the Chavnoz GP, literally only about 5km from my apartment which featured a short but technical 4km circuit with a short climb up to the finish. I kept trying to get in breaks and initiate them too. I had many laps where I was either off the front bridging to a break or in a small break. But they all got caught unfortunately. But I won the most combative rider. Since this race I’ve been getting stronger, and using things that I’ve learnt to give me the best opportunity to use the good legs that I have. Last weekend I was up north near Mulhouse. 75kph gusts, rain and flat roads. Typical Belgian style racing but without the cobbles. The headwind was slow, the tailwind was rapid and the crosswinds, well, they were just carnage. I was in a good position most of the time, until just moving up a final bit before the crosswinds, I found myself the wrong side of a roundabout and had to take a slightly longer route, losing 20 places or so. This was just enough to lose the front group in the crosswinds. Literally 2 places higher and I would’ve made it. Oh well. After 3 laps drilling it, staying 20 seconds maximum behind the group we was caught by a larger group which eventually stopped working. I attacked them in the final 3km, showing I still had good legs after 3 hours racing and rolled in 57th.

Similar to scenes you would see atop a mountain in the Giro D’Italia, with faint shadows of cyclists ploughing through a blanket of snow, this weekend’s transversalle l’ain was one of those days you don’t want to be outside, let alone in a few layers of lycra. The first 25km was warm, around 17 degrees and sunny, before the rain started to fall after 50km of so. Crosswinds split it up a lot in the first hour before we hit the 11km col up to 950m. About half way the snow started to fall and by the top, it was like seeing a wall of white in front of you. This with a mix of hail stung when it hit you, especially on the decent. Riders were pulling out left, right and centre due to the 0 degrees temperature. Some riders were literally in puffer jackets and begging for help. With around 12km to go (i thought I still had 25km to go) with only about 25 riders left in the race I had to get in the team car. Shivering violently and with my legs as red as a tomato. Maybe I could’ve gone on a little further if I was able to zip up my jacket, but with hands that numb I could hardly even change gear. Anyway, legs up until that point were amazing, especially on the climbs, which is promising for the races ahead.  

T-shirt weather is on its way and I cannot wait. Even though I do enjoy racing when it’s a bit grim and wet, this may have been a little bit too much.